Introduction

The country is of immeasurable value to botanists, ornithologists, and
investigators in other fields of natural science.1
—Earl H. Reed

As befits any place of natural wonder and historic stature, the Indiana dunes region has a favorite folktale that serves to enrich and preserve its past, reveal local mystery and explore universal kinships. In this case, the story is that of Alice Mabel Gray, more popularly known as Diana of the Dunes.

For the past ninety-five years, the legend of Diana of the Dunes has grown as wild as the environs in which she lived. Beginning at Lake Michigan’s southern rim and moving inland, long, open stretches of sand hills are bound by a backcountry of tall dunes, dense forest and civilization. Although nearby towns are now sprawling, more easily accessible and much busier, they were once small enclaves of farms and homesteads, connected despite their distance by commerce and family ties. Before 1900, most people considered the dunes largely uninhabitable; the press often referred to it as “trackless wasteland,” unexplored and loosely claimed, with vestiges of the early French fur trade and Pottawatomie Indians still traceable along pathways and through first-generation storytelling.

By the turn of the century, however, the steel industry had moved into the area. At the same time, neighboring Chicagoans—led in large part by University of Chicago academics and Chicago Renaissance icons—began in earnest to study, appreciate and celebrate its unusual diversity of botanical life and terrain. The unspoiled beaches attracted growing numbers of recreation seekers. Inevitably, these groups clashed over how best to utilize dunes resources.

Unrelated, yet caught in the same net, the sensational story of Alice Gray rose amid the crashing waves of controversy. She proved a timely metaphor for the struggle to preserve the area’s natural heritage amid the unfolding progress of civilization.

Tales about Diana of the Dunes are still told throughout Indiana—especially in the Calumet region. The story usually begins in late fall of 1915, when Alice Mabel Gray stepped onto an old path in the dunes and followed it to the edge of Lake Michigan. She found permanent shelter in an abandoned shack near a sandy ridge, turning her back on Chicago and all the incumbent responsibilities of living and working in the city. Local townspeople were aghast; but just the same, the mystery of her presence was a thrilling interlude that would fuel local gossip for decades to come.

Alice, intelligent and free-spirited, had responded drastically to society’s rigid conventions: she excused herself completely from its rules and routine. At age thirty-four, this Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago traded her single, working woman’s life for a rougher, yet more thoughtful, existence in the untamed dunes of Indiana, some forty-five miles southeast of the city. From the doorway of the shack she claimed as her own, Alice fearlessly guarded her privacy and her right to live in the sand hills—alone. Her audacity bewitched and befuddled enough eager reporters that Alice quickly became an enigma, a prime target for front-page news in an era of sensational headlines; she grew legendary in her own time. Even so, you will not find many today who recognize the name Alice Gray. Mention Diana of the Dunes, however, and it becomes quite another story.

The Indiana dunes region has long been a place for sojourners desiring escape, nourishment through introspection or a richer, more deliberate experience among the bounties of nature. Alice merely joined the ranks of those who sought sanctuary there, though for others at the time this usually meant weekend retreats; the clamor for year-round living would come later. For myriad reasons, and perhaps no reason in particular, her story became more pressing than that of any other intrepid dunes character. Other inhabitants were mostly forgotten old men, those with fizzled lives who found the life of a hermit more than satisfying. Although historian Earl H. Reed tramped among the dunes to interview them and capture their stories and dialect in books, none of these characters experienced the intense scrutiny that Alice suffered at the typewriters of so many prolific reporters. When they weren’t calling her a goddess, they treated her like a sideshow performer, a mystifying and curious misfit. Based largely on details provided in the earliest newspaper accounts, Alice has since become the subject of history-book chapters, newsletter and magazine articles, plays, poems, songs and an art show. The names of local businesses, a town festival, a street, vacation homes—even the naming of a sand dune²—have paid homage to Diana of the Dunes. Ghost stories, each with invented details and all claiming reports of Diana “sightings,” are published in print and online.

Although given other nicknames by reporters and townspeople—for example, Nymph O’ the Dunes—Diana of the Dunes instantly took hold when it was suggested by a Chicago newspaper in the days just after her discovery. Alice might even have considered it a compliment, if not for the notoriety it attracted. Headlines rarely featured her given name. Diana of the Dunes, on the other hand, frequently found its way into bold type. In preliminary searches, it seemed a Chicago journalist first called her Diana of the Dunes. A November 1916 newspaper headline blared, “‘Nymph’ Alice Now a ‘Diana’”; below it, in the article’s second paragraph, she was compared to mythological Diana, the Roman huntress. The writer noted that she was a better shot with her rifle than most local men—especially when it came to duck hunting.“This strange woman is recognized here as a veritable Diana. Nimrods who returned with one lone duck as a result of a hunt in the dune observed with envy a score on the line at Miss Alice’s windowless cabin.”³

In fact, an Indiana newspaper originated the nickname Diana of the Dunes in a headline during the first week of her discovery; the headline ran above a story that was reprinted from a Chicago newspaper that, for all practical purposes, may be lost to history.⁴ In any case, the name Diana immediately took hold, proclaiming Alice’s new, and lasting, identity. As if to be certain, modern-day supporters inscribed “Diana of the Dunes” on Alice’s headstone—above “Alice Gray Wilson.” The stone was laid many years after her death.

Alice came by the last name of Wilson in the last few years of her life, during which she lived with a man who called himself Paul Wilson. His given name was Paul Eisenblatter; it is unclear why or when he adopted the alias, but he used it consistently both throughout the time he knew Alice and ever afterward. The couple first claimed to be married but later acknowledged they were not. A search of legal records verifies the latter, though there is a lingering question as to the possibility of common-law marriage. As an indication that the nickname Diana had permeated Alice’s life, in every news story that quoted Paul he referred to her as Diana—not Alice. Paul had clearly adopted the nickname and likely used it with Alice’s blessing.

In an early interview, granted nine months after Alice’s arrival in the sand hills, a Chicago reporter quoted Alice as saying that the life of a wage earner in the city was akin to “slavery.”⁵ To escape the inequality and incivility of the work world and probably, too, to escape a difficult love relationship in the city, she sought a solitary life in the Indiana dunes—her inspiration derived from a poem by Lord Byron titled “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” in which he wrote the line, “In solitude, where we are least alone.” Many have assumed that Alice never achieved such serene seclusion.

During her years in the Indiana dunes—the final ten years of her life—neighbors and reporters alike took copious and creative notes, assigning traits and activities to Alice, both true and false, which are still reflected in prevailing stories. The most popular is that she bathed naked in Lake Michigan (as soon as the ice began breaking up, so some of her contemporaries reported, although Alice denied this) and did so often, running a length of beach to dry her body. Other familiar details: Alice, with weathered skin and a rather indistinct frame, seriously studied dunes flora, read voraciously and wrote manuscripts that she kept private; some of her writings were later stolen, others lost to time—a partial diary survives and is appended. She fished and bought salt, bread and other staples in town. Suspected of stealing food and blankets when times were hard, people also said she borrowed sturdier shelter from vacationers who owned property in the dunes while those owners were away. She walked endlessly, dressed simply in makeshift skirts or khaki pants, talked softly and boldly quoted poetry to intruding reporters. Alice displayed a congenial manner in good company—a fiery venom when threatened. Infrequent visitors sat outside her first patchwork shack, which she named Driftwood, and never glimpsed the interior.

In her second shanty home, Wren’s Nest, Alice lived with Wilson, the man who had changed his name and invented most of his past; a man who would cast murder, thievery and injury into Alice’s life. On the other hand, he offered security, companionship, adventure, a strong back and—some may doubt this—love.

Various “facts” about Alice are diluted, misconstrued or contrived. Newspaper stories published during her residence in the dunes provide the only original, although not always truthful, accounts of her life. In later years, many more articles followed, but those newspaper stories generated little, if any, new information. No serious research intended as a biographical sketch of Alice Gray is yet in print. This is not to say such research has not been undertaken. On the contrary, local librarians are quick to point out that Diana of the Dunes is a favorite research subject at the reference desk. Library folders all along Lake Michigan’s southern shores, from Chicago throughout northwest Indiana, are either bulging with news clippings, oral histories, unattributed notes and unanswered questions about Diana of the Dunes or pitifully lacking in significant mention—folders named for her but nearly empty. There is no comprehensive source; her story stretches as widely as the Indiana dunes themselves and is equally complex. Available details are often second- or third-hand information. Careful scrutiny reveals misinformation in even the most reliable of sources.

Seeded by those early reporters, Alice’s tale rooted quickly and deeply in regional history, blossoming as legends do. Even today, her story continues to sprout wild, hybrid shoots of both truth and rumor. For nearly a century, Diana of the Dunes stories have endured through ongoing spates of interpretive hearsay and creative storytelling.

However, what is lost in historical translation is worth recovering here, because in the story of Alice Gray the truth can hold its own against any fabrication. Tales of Diana of the Dunes, and the authentic story of Alice Gray, are timeless, provocative and inspiring. Since newly uncovered facts are in hand, it is time to set straight—as much as possible—the story of Alice Gray.

The legend of Diana of the Dunes still leaves much to the imagination, which contributes to its long-standing popularity. Even after years of focused research, important gaps of time and circumstance are yet unexplained, underlying motives remain muddy and photographs fade in long-forgotten albums. It is hoped that this book will cause new information to rise to the surface, especially in regard to old photographs of Alice. The few images we do have are poor quality copies because the originals are lost, or—like the one featured on the front cover of this book—they are something of a misrepresentation; she was hardly the type to dress up, but while the outfit is an anomaly, the photograph provides the clearest portrait of Alice.

In any case, Diana of the Dunes is bound to continue drifting through the currents of local lore. Without fail, and as it should be, each generation yields new storytellers and new listeners to reaffirm the timelessness of Alice Gray’s remarkable story.